Editorial: Aurora City Council work on appointing a mayor must be open to the public

The Sentinel (Aurora): Just as important as whom the Aurora City Council chooses to fill the remaining term of deceased Mayor Steve Hogan, is how the city council arrives at its decision.

The city council meets in open session Monday night to discuss those details, and that’s the form it should follow through the process.

Hogan died May 13 after a battle with cancer, creating a vacancy that must be filled by city council appointment, and not a special election. That’s a matter the city council should reconsider for future vacancies that carry substantial time in office.

Aurora is governed by a council-manager system. Although the mayor’s position is full-time, he or she acts more as a member of city council than the city’s administration. The city council and mayor appoint the city manager and make policy. The city manager carries out that policy and daily municipal operations.

Aurora is a large and complex government, which includes one of the largest and most powerful water agencies in Colorado, an urban renewal authority governing billions of dollars in development and a unified city government employing upward of 4,000 people.

The decisions this city council makes in whom becomes the public face of Aurora and guides the city council in making decisions is important not just to the approximately 350,000 people who live here and thousands of commercial and government concerns, but to the entire state.